Of Carnivals and Merry-Go-Rounds
by Redstorm of Scar Pack
Summary: Retelling the true story of Sylvia Likens, a girl who died in a basement after three months of pitiless neglect and torture, inflicted by her caregiver's children and their friends.
1. Prologue

PROLOGUE: JENNY

Back before it all started, I used to think I was already killing my sister. As the time passed in that bleak house, however, she didn't seem to exist, except in relation to me. I would sneak I into the basement, right after all the other kids would ruthlessly mock, beat and burn Sylvia, and listen to the furious roar of her heart, counting the ways – burning with cigarettes; scalping and sprinkling with salt; a cruel blow to the mouth with a metal curtain rod after she refused food.

After she died, I still had the nightmares. How after she finally passed, I was left with the burden that nobody had done anything to save her. It was my father who led me back to bed on one particular night, the night before her birthday. A glance of fear and betrayal lingered on Lester's expression, like those cruel words upon Sylvia's stomach all those months ago.

As it turned out, I never helped them torture my sister. They did it all on their own.

Or at least, this is what I think Sylvia wanted me to believe.


	2. Our Beginning

_ONE: SYLVIA_

You can't exist in this world without leaving a little piece of yourself behind. There are hidden cracks, like chips in the pavement one shimmering summer day; like the hasty, scrawled letter your husband jotted down in the throes of war; the subliminal message of your favourite song, the one you replayed over and over again to entice the senses of escapism.

My senses swim as I blink away the delirium of sleep, my yawn a rumble of protest, all my joints popping in satisfaction. My fingers stretch out, seeking Jenny's warmth, but clutching at only the soft lull of the duvet. I push back my shaggy curtain of caramel hair, grimacing as the stark, overhead light painted my figure in such a teasing, mirth-filled way.

"Sylvia, come _on!_ " she protests, grabbing my shoulder roughly and pressing down with her palm. "Get up! Mom and Dad are waiting. We can't miss church again because of some silly dream."

I give an incoherent groan of dismissal. "It isn't stupid," I scoff, pushing myself up to my knees, resolve collecting around us, a mist. "Paul McCartney isn't stupid."

Jenny pokes her tongue out at me, a charming display of sisterly affection. "Really?" she giggles, unconvinced of my idol. "He's not _that_ cute. John's much more talented than him."

"Then why did I hear you gossiping about him at school?" I tease, ruffling my feathery brown hair. "What was it you said? That he's a _hunk?_ "

Her laugh was a sweet one, innocent and blithe, all the edges soft and enticing even through the thick, sultry universe, Sleep. "Alright, fine," she giggled, steadying herself carefully, much like the man on the tightrope at the circus. "But still," she added, resolute in a way only she could, "we have to go."

Puffing out my cheeks and poking my tongue at my little sister, I swing my legs over the side of the bed and slowly, robotically, as if I were controlled by an outsider, an almighty being, I began to clothe myself.

The yelp of pain crashes through me, though, and I steady my sister delicately, as if we could be disconnected by a light, enticing thread, the layer of skin between this world and the next. I shift her away gently, propping her up in case she fell, the marionette whose strings have been cut.

"It's okay," I soothe, glancing into her glittering eyes. "Want me to go get Momma?"

"Not just yet," she sighs, shifting the brace around, breathing in as it faces me. Looking into her deep eyes, glittering slightly, there is something unreadable there, and that is not my sister at all. Noticing her paled expression, I smile slightly and give her hand what I think is supposed to be a reassuring squeeze, the heat from her palm blinding and confusing all the same.

Protecting my sister seems, to me at least, second nature.


	3. New Friends

_TWO: PAULA_

There was an unexpected pattern of emotion dealing with Sylvia Likens for the very first time. The heat from the afternoon sun eliminated her porcelain features, the paleness of her skin radiating youth and perfection, the undeniable stench of purity contrasting, _writhing_ , between us.

Her upturned mouth, pink pursed lips, soft caramel hair, all beautiful and sweet, soft, alluring. A very picturesque of everything that I'd wanted to obtain my whole life, the slithering flame burning up in my heart, heating every bit of me, contrast in the thick snarl of envy.

A sneering rasp as I feel, rather than hear, my greeting – "Hey."

Immediately she slows, twisting her head to the side confidently, her lips quirking in such a sickly sweet glimmer. "Hi."

God, she even _reeks_ a polite, soft-spoken aura, and I feel the monster within me shrivel slightly, my mouth puckering in a snarling, demanding emotion.

"Haven't seen you two around here before." My mouth moves, twists, and sneers, all in very sickly, undeniable hues, the temptation snapping at my heels like a dog does a meaty bone.

"Our parents are carnival workers," the girl explains, one hand seemingly pressing into her sister's back, delicate yet firm all the same. "We move around a lot, they're always on the road …. Exciting, really."

As if by a snarling, demonic being, devoid of any interest or worship, I scoff, bluntly adding to the girls' concerns, and spit out, "Lucky, wish my family got to tour around, we never go anywhere, our momma, she's ill …"

Sylvia, she introduced herself as, a name that seemed like some sign of great destiny, virtue, holiness, undeniable adoration, hope. She knits her eyebrows, face paled, and deep, soulful brown gaze shimmering with unfathomable pity;

The younger girl, hands scrabbling at the metal that purred mirthlessly against her left leg, gives a small nod, polling back obliquely as if by an invisible force, her gestures poised and timid. "That …. That's awful."

Considering, calculating, I tilt my head a bit, as if weighing the possible decisions, and the brilliance roils within my mind, my heart, that runaway train, slowing softly, suddenly, sweetly, melting away the abyss, the bottomless pit demanding _pain, suffering, sickness, cigarettes, cancerous._

"Why don't you girls come and see for yourself?" The suggestion is out, flickering through the air like the vile snake it is, appearing through the sea of friendship that I feel is already destroyed, the horse in the stable the minute it is shot for mercy.

"Sure." Radiantly, the smile she wore, once wan, thin, unsure, broadened into something sweeter, forgiving, outward, the sea of grey contrast elusive and veiled.

Tentatively, slowly, teasingly, I smirk back.


	4. 3850

THREE: JENNY

The reclusive, disputable bungalow, tattered, worn in, undeniably ragged, swimming in a sea of children, all family and friend, floating in and out almost daily, like an alternate reality you sometimes slip into, enriching the sweet sounds of oblivion, of mercy, laughter, mirth, love.

Thin, pale, haggard, wasting away in a billow of smoke, her children knowing little about the outside world, she, burning out in her thirties, poverty and parenthood crippling her emotionally and mentally, wrinkles parting her olive, speckled skin, the sketches lightly traced upon her body marking age and adulthood.

Her fathomable, harrowing onyx glare met my meek, resigned flicker of a glance, baring her hideous yellow teeth in a demonic attempt at a grin, the ghoulish, cracked surroundings in which she lurked appearing all the more dominating, overbearing, dogmatic.

The wailing sounded directly above me, dark and hungry, mewling as if it were a stuck kitten, the cries of protest blooming through my head, deafening.

"Stephanie," her throaty growl pierces through me, my wince slight and fearful, catching the sudden smirk she tossed in our direction, horrid, yet effective. "Feed that baby!" A casual flick of her dappled wrist, in the ashtray's direction, sudden and swift. A moment's pause as Paula's younger sister calls back, "We ain't got any milk, momma!"

Gertrude's onyx black eyes glitter in the light, protruding the sweet, lustful flame, Fury. "They'll give it to you if you take the baby."

Letting out a sigh, Stephanie clutches her baby brother to her chest and huffs, storming out the door, a scowl knitted on her porcelain face, lips curled in protest.

"Who're these girls, Paula?"

Her young daughter, passive and indecisive against her mother's demanding, cold stare, gives an incoherent grumble. "Sylvia and Jenny. They're staying here tonight, momma."

"What d'you mean 'they're staying here tonight'?" the pale, underweight asthmatic snarls, slowly rising out of her seat, the full moon against the harsh rays of night, descending upon her daughter like a cracking whip. "I've got seven of you bitches to sort out, why should I take in two more?"  
"Momma, they've got nowhere else to go! Their parents need somewhere for them to stay while they're away!"

Fury, rage, unspeakable anger, shading slowly into horror, the haunting phantom, Poverty and Parenthood, settling into the belly of the beast. "Well, offer them your room, Paula," Gertrude hisses, her onyx eyes still seething venomously. " _Now!_ "

Wrinkling her nose, she leads Sylvia and me up the rickety steps, the squeaks and groans of the wood chattering, almost delightedly, at the prospect of two new arrivals.

All the while Gertrude, passive against the stable support of the table in which she was sat, slews her gaze toward my sister, black pupils dilating with malice.


	5. Twenty Dollars A Week

FOUR: GERTRUDE

Lester Likens, a thick, well-spoken man, seems hardly the type for a proper financial deal. He stands at the doorway, his eyes crinkling with laughter, amusement, joy, his nature mild and his etiquette true.

"Hey," he greets me, his smile friendly and unthreatening. "I'm looking for my daughters?"

I take his hand as he offers it to me, his grip firm and shake slight and brief. "You must be Mr Likens. Well, Sylvia and Jenny are just upstairs, I'm sure they'll be down soon."

Smiling, he settles down in the chair opposite me, leaning back before _thumping_ down, the floorboards moaning in protest. "I heard they'd be here, like," he sniffs, noticing my eyes gleam, curiosity winking blithely in the sunlight. "Darlene, I think her name was, she said they'd be here with you. A friend of your daughter's?"

"Friend of Paula's, yes, I remember. So, you got any family here in Indy?"

"None that I could leave the girls with," he sighs, slicking back his feathery, tousled hair with annoyance. "The girls' mother, Betty, and I, we've been having a lot of trouble lately … and we think the carnival's the best shot at reworking our marriage."

"You work the carnival?" I repeat, quirking an eyebrow, interest perking my senses, the cat finally detecting that troublesome rat. "What made you decide to work there?"

"Convenience. Betty and me, we thought it'd be the best choice career-wise, and it'd give the children something to come home to."

I nod, taking a heavy drag, allowing the smoke sift into my mouth, transfixing me, the grey, ash-coloured poison lacing in front of resident and guest, accompanying the vast conversation, lethal, ginger, and poetic. The sentence, coupled by the strange fascination with this man, this father of my daughter's acquaintances, is out my mouth the minute I have time to wrangle it like the vile, quivering worm it is: "Well, why don't you leave Sylvia and Jenny here with me?"

His blank, dejected mask, so hollow with the realisation that his marriage was about to be a bust, coupled with the fact that his children needed so desperately a place to stay, is cracked through by the brilliance of gratitude. "You'd be willing to do that for us? For them?" I nod, further delighting him, exceeding his expectations, the haunted man waking up to a brilliant summer's light. "I'd have to check it over with the girls, of course, but what about your children?"

"I gots seven kids," I remind him, the venom slinking into my brain, each one a vile response toward his question. "Two more ain't gonna make a difference."

"Well, thank you kindly," he grins, his chest broad and puffed out with pride, thicker in the middle than I expected, the harsh aging lines bracketing his mouth, parenthesis surrounding a lifetime of words I was never around to hear. "How's twenty dollars a week sound?"

"That's perfectly fine," I agree, flickering my tongue out to abolish the dry, cracking sensation blurring my senses. "Just make sure to get the cheques in on time, I'm gonna need the money. I'll wanna take your girls to church, and they'll be attending school here, for a bit, I guess."

"Alright. Oh, and feel free to discipline my girls, keep them in line, like. Their momma's too soft on them at times, likes to spoil 'em."

Smiling, the feeling of power and total control writhing about my insides like the vile demon purring within, I extend my hand to shake on the deal. "Oh, don't you worry about that," I purr, my tone silky, smoothing down the crinkles of disapproval or uncertainty. "I absolutely can."


	6. Settling In

FIVE: SYLVIA

The minute the announcement is made, the bittersweet feeling of independence from our parents settles in, a vice, a snarling asp, a thick fog of depression swirling around like a deep, unreachable abyss.

"But, papa," I trail after him as he strides to the door, the goodbyes a hollow husk of opportunity, of unrest, fragility. "I don't want you to go."

"Come on, Sylvia." He pulls away from my clutching grasp with a childlike impatience, clutching my shoulders with a steadying force. "This kind lady has offered to take care of you, what's so hard to understand? I know you and Jenny love the carnival, but your mama and I can't do it this time. It's for the best."

My head swimming with the unease of guilt, sorrow at keeping him here when he needed mama, needed the carnival, I lowered my gaze, instead glaring at the hardwood floors, as if they could somehow stop this tide of misery, and instead focus its' limitless energy into mocking, demeaning, tearing apart. "Well, I guess," I mumble, breaking free of his hold, hugging myself for comfort, as if this could prevent the pinprick of tears threatening to spill over my lashes, a waterfall of words that couldn't be said.

"That's my girl," he says, and his gentle beam is enough to send a ripple of poison through my body. "We'll be back for you soon, don't worry."

I nod, knowing this is not enough, no matter what he or mama says. That no matter what, this isn't what we want, but we have to pretend, for his sake and ours. "Sure, papa."

She returns, a volley of smoke rising forth from her jaw as though it were a burden upon her, the smoke ravaging her lungs like a weightless energy. "Okay, you all set? Remember, that cheque needs to be in on time, I'm gonna need that money."

"Well, you'll be sure to have it," Papa grins, his eyes canvases of light, paintings of gratitude and naivety. "Jenny, Cookie," he adds, enveloping both of us into an embrace, his steady arms clutching us to his wide girth. "You be good. We'll be back for you the end of November."

Jenny nods, her eyes watery with the constant drag of guilt, and turns to the stairs, away from the history of our family, the depression swallowing her whole, a limitless supply and demand of Greif and Torment.

"Johnny, get them bags, like," Gertrude hisses, her teeth gnashed as the boy moves to oblige his mother, his beady, watery eyes glowering at us in silent, seething rage. "Now, you two are welcome to anything here. You'll be staying with the girls upstairs – Jenny, if your brace makes it hard to walk upstairs, you can sleep downstairs on the couch, or maybe we can get a mattress down here, it's more comfortable, I guess."

"Gee, thanks." Jenny's mouth quirks into a wan smile, and she turns her direction to me, my figure passive and cool, eyes hooded from fatigue.

Glancing my sister's way, I thin my lips into a neat line, harsh features contrast to the comfort that me and Jenny are accustomed to, and I add, "Yeah, thank you, ma'am."

"Call me Gertie," the mother presses, eyes suddenly glowing with a sudden light. Her features, stark and charcoal grey as if painted inward by a sudden depression, tones down into a fixture of pleasure. "This isn't a formal stay, girls, I'll be lookin' after you two as if you were my own."

We both nod, inferior to the towering passion and authority of the adult, thanking her like a meek entity, before standing as if on a whim, me whisking up the steps to visit Paula, as nearly as haunted and barren as her mother.

"Well c'mon, then," she smirks my way, eyes glittering blithely, like the smooth, unmarred river calming into glossiness. "We'll help you unpack."


	7. Paula's Lament

SIX: PAULA

Sylvia and Jenny have decided to trust me and the rest of our family wholeheartedly. Her calm, sleeping figure cocooned in the pit of the covers, swathed in a tattered, woolly blanket far too big for her, scratchy, moth-eaten and worse for wear. The girl is the very picture of life and love, the pit of my swirling stomach, the twisting knot, like a snarling, hateful thing, and its demonic grin thickening every time I see her, _Sylvia Marie Likens._

Her name. The very name most of the boys at school would have pressed upon their lips tomorrow, when she'd walk the corridors tall and proud. A flicker of heat presses low into my stomach, playfully lapping at my emotions like a vile snake, as if I were possessed from within. _Anger_ came first, licking at my senses, bubbling with unsaturated hate. _Jealousy,_ that unbearable burn, my eyes stinging, and at first I feel that that Likens girl has found a way to punish me, burn me, for all the conflicting flames I've felt. My eyes misting, I pick my way toward the side of her bed, as if _this_ could stop the tide of unbearable emotion gushing into me, the image of _her_ burning constantly throughout my mind. Slowly, tentatively, I push the hollow of my palm up to her nose, the silver of my fingertips gently cooled by the brush of calm air. I could clutch her while she struggles, hold down that nose and mouth, until the light ebbed from her eyes. Oh, how that'd make the world that much simpler.

Glancing back, this ginger action vacant and still, I sigh and sift a pale hand through my hair, dark and tousled with sleep. "Fuck."

My voice was rough and grainy, cutting the air and vanishing almost as swiftly as it'd appeared, the cocoon of her sheets rustling and bristling slightly. Conflict bubbles within the outline of my chest, thick with unease and tension, the air thick and heavy like saltwater floating about the room, a poisonous whim.

The perfect outline of _her,_ how at peace she looked when she slept, her smile one-sided, not exactly a smirk, because she never was _smug_ or _self-satisfied_. She was pretty, no denying, a sweet, humble being, her face as fresh as a raindrop, the bed her flower petal on which she lay.

Momma was once as beautiful as her, or so they said. Back before she went off the rails, they say the boys chased her, needed her, and _lusted_ after her. She'd undergone rough treatment, and then she'd woken up and realised the truth about her life, as sad and lonesome a world could be, how you could end up, what you could become. The depression had eaten her up, she'd said, just as it would do for us all someday.

 _Lust_. It was a key word that floated in and out of this house for as long as I could remember. A prominent, noteworthy snake of a word, coined with every evil, vile thing a person could face, teasing and enticing – bittersweet, a feeling that oozed out of you like blood from a wound. Seeping and soulful, and escape from such a notion was damn near impossible. _Lust._

Was it lust that motivated me to seduce an older, _married,_ man? Maybe so, maybe the enticing situation of it all, the fear of getting caught, the immense attraction, veiled under love, under sweet-breathed kisses and secrets drunkenly whispered into a lethal lover's pillow in the dead of night.

 _Well,_ I reason, slightly tipping my head to the left to scrutinise every silver of breath I catch from the bed opposite me. _Sylvia's new to the game. It's about time we teach her the rules._


	8. First Day

SEVEN: JENNY

The early cracks of light began to shift and bleed, ebbing into itself, a benign welcome for such an eerie, calm morning. Sylvia presses against me, her back to mine, her sleeping face at ease and she reaches past me to grab at the scratchy, moth-eaten quilt, her soulful brown orbs alight with energy, her face calm, though slack with exhaust.

"Morning," she giggles, steadying me, helping me out of the rough canvas covers. "Rise and shine."

"Says the one who wouldn't get out of bed a few days ago," I grumble, but sit up as cross with my sister as I allow myself to be, scrabbling for the brace that latched onto my left leg like a second limb.

"It was a great dream!" she protests, sticking out her tongue in a haughty manner. "And c'mon, Jenny, it's a school day."

"Another _fantastic_ reason you should let me sleep until noon," I sigh, peering up at my sister through thick, long lashes. She grins impishly, this being enough to give me the strength to at least giggle, and she takes it, reaching down to support me with my brace, balancing me as I walked, the living room seeming a mile away, the floorboards creaking and swerving with each effort.

"Morning, Gertie," Sylvia choruses, her wan, sleepy grin prominent on her pretty features.

The mother sits, dark and impassive, at the breakfast table, a mug of steaming coffee grasped tightly in a speckled, tanned hand, barely giving my sister a nod, let alone full acknowledgement. Her pink, slithering tongue peeks out to moisten her cracked, feverish lips, and she turns to face us, her expression mildly irate. "Hello, girls," she rasps, eyes hooded, almost guarded. "Did you sleep well?"

"Yeah, thank you," I reply, my expression timid. My meek, blushing figure seemed to stir something in the erratic Gertrude, her lights alight with feverish curiosity, onyx orbs glittering as if awoken by some deep slumber.

"Well, I'll let you girls be on your way. Paula's gonna show ya's around school, seeing as your new." A tart smirk from the woman, her bony hand, blistered from hard labour, brings the warm cup to her dry, cracked lips, sipping as though she'd not tasted something so godly.

Sylvia, her dark curls bobbing around as she nods in understanding, brushes a strand of caramel past her elf-like ear. "That's kind of her," she says softly, shifting slightly under the newcomer's stern gaze. "We'll be sure to thank her."

"Best you do," she calls after us, the liquorice whip of undertone chasing after me as the door bolts shut with an overhanging _slam,_ like too ripe fruit smashing on the cobbled floor, bruised from the impact.

Giving me a comforting glance, albeit a dazed one, Sylvia strides out the door, confidence and possibility striking around her, and I can't help but be proud, the aura around her warm and outwardly more welcoming.

It would be hard for my sister to keep under the radar if things went wrong.


	9. Late Payment

EIGHT: GERTRUDE

The minute the Likens girls rush off for school, a gleam twists in the pit of my stomach, and the fine, bone-like cigarette is poised between my teeth, a second friend, whispering songs of comfort from deep within my fragile system. The smoke flutters from my mouth, stroking the air gently, rocking through the atmosphere like a cracking whip, and this is what starts baby Denny off again. The screams pierce the quiet, stirring an all-too-familiar resentment that roils within my stomach, and I claw at the fine, supple limb of nicotine, the friend that soothes and eases my worries, relives me from the hell that is the shadow on the wall, Depression.

Sighing, I brush Denny's thick curls away from his hair, quieting him, his gurgling and cooing softly, his dimpled hands clutching my bony, veined wrist, demanding to be held. I sigh and scoop him up from his cot, the cigarette still firm in my grip, the only salvation there was in the world.

My coughing, hacking, spluttering erupts again, spewing from my aching chest like and erupting mountain, the pain forcing me to settle Denny again, and I slump into the chair closest to me, my face slack with perspiration and exhaust.

There was an unexpected anger, I'd realised, sitting at the breakfast table and meeting Sylvia Likens for the first time. From the moment I saw her, a bleak, corroding feeling welled up inside me, a pitiful, fleeting excuse, but the only escape I'd had revolving around my logic. Poised, determined, I mull over that fact, that wheel spinning slowly, igniting the raw passion again, and my fingers, slack though they are, tighten over the bone-like beauty.

With a shaking hand I crook my finger in front of my lips, considering the situation, delicate though it is. What is it about this girl, this child, this stranger in my home? The quiet aura of Jenny Likens, that submissive, meek personality, was not present in her older sister. Far from it, actually.

Shock absorbs my brain, and I realise that the outwardly more confident sister, the prettier one, the most welcoming, warm, sensitive, thoughtful …

 _No,_ I snarl at myself, refusing to meet even the baby's whimsical glance. _Don't think about her. She's a stranger! You don't even know her. She's nothing to you, nothing at all …_

Sighing, the splitting force of a migraine slithers into my mind like a sneering asp. I raise my palms up to my temples, as if massaging the tender spot could do any good, the nicotine still piercing and thick, the taste rough and textured.

My mind wanders back to the new girls, the Likens children, and I realise with a great effort that the money would have come today. I settle Denny on his back, watching him gurgle peacefully at me, a child's innocent grip on the world, and I feel a sort of impulsive swell of peace surge within me. A glance toward the mailbox, and all I can notice is the overflow of bills and taxes, most unpaid, unaffordable. Child support isn't much, my work once steady and supportive, now withering like a crumbling, fragile sliver of hope.

Recklessly, as if pulled towards by a hidden thing, I scrabble for the freshest pile of letters, fumbling through them for an envelope from Mr and Mrs Likens. My fingers scratch and tear at the parchment, though, as I realise my worst nightmare. Hissing a wheeze, a growl of defeat, I slump in my chair, my breathing becoming more laboured and sluggish with the immense stress brewing in my chest. My eyes, bloodshot and watery, scan upstairs to the door of the girls' room. My brain, devilish and desiring compensation for the lost wages, works like a charm almost immediately, and I realise exactly what those two (those _BITCHES!)_ would be in for as soon as they dared step foot back in my house, my home. _You said "I'd treat them as my own,"_ my brain reasoned, and I absentmindedly smirk at my previous conversation with Lester Likens. _It wouldn't be fair if you didn't include ….. Punishment, would it?_

 _No,_ I answer my thoughts back, silently, as if mesmerised about what needed to be done. _No, it wouldn't._


	10. A Change In Personality

NINE: SYLVIA

"I'm just telling you," Jenny grins at me, her chocolate orbs glittering with determination. "Why _him_? He's not even like McCartney!"

Paula, smirking at the sisterly shows of affection, rushed to my defence. "Yes, he is," she interjected hotly, onyx eyes brewing something light-hearted and fresh. "And he's _so cute_."

"Don't you already have a boyfriend?" I tease, lightly brushing her shoulder, and she smirked at the contact before shrugging my question off.

"So what?" Paula shrugs, dark eyes seemingly in a deep, faraway trance. "It's not like we're exclusive or anything. I'm fucking him occasionally, not …. _Seeing him._ "

"Whatever you say," my sister giggles, hurriedly wrenching the Baniszewski's door open. "And anyway, Sylvia, it's not like you said _he_ liked _you,_ so what's the matter?"

"Nothing," I shrug, giving my sister a shrewd glance before grinning back up at Paula. "But he has a girlfriend, and I don't know how they're going right now."

"Well, there you go." Paula, her face darkening in a sickly triumph, smirks down at me and Jenny. "If they break up, he'll be all yours."

Giggling, I give a slight shake of my head, my caramel curls bobbing slightly. "I'm not really interested in that sort of thing," I admit, and Paula wrinkles her nose, her onyx eyes glinting softly. "My last boyfriend, all he wanted was sex. I did get close to it a couple of times, but we had to move shortly after I was ready to go through with it."

Paula, her eyes shimmering with satisfaction, gives a slow nod, her skin seemingly blanched and paper white in the harsh overhead sun. "Oh, yeah, I get it," she grins, giving my sister a soft look before stepping into the house, the sunlight overhead striking her raven hair.

"Hey, momma," she says by way of greeting, setting her bag atop the rickety kitchen table and pecking Gertrude's frail, crinkling cheek. "Busy day?"

The mother grunts softly in agreement, her onyx pits glaring deep into my soft brown gaze, her eyes twinkling with wicked delight. "Sure, Paula. Sylvia, Jenny. I want you two down in the basement."

I wrinkle my nose and glance at Paula for a comforting word, but she's behind the kitchen counter, hastily boiling water from a worn down stove, resisting the temptation of the scenario around her. The other kids, at Gertie's hasty word, retreat back into the safety of their bedrooms, the warmth of the air dissolving around us like a parted sea.

The basement is damp and musty, dust gathering almost harrowingly around every surface of the room, as if to outline the perverse nature of the whole space. The walls are dented and somewhat caved in, as if it has given up on itself completely, folding into itself like a sponge.

Gertie, the harsh overhead bulb flickering eerily over her features, stalks toward our waiting forms. "Your papa's cheque didn't arrive today."

The undertone in those few little words, they make my sister, already so fragile and meek, step back as if stung, as if the heat from Gertrude's sentence has branded her like an open flame. "Oh," she says softly, her eyebrows knitted inward, as if this could stop the impending scolding that we expect.

"It's probably just late," I advise, smiling a bit to ease Gertie's tension.

"Shut _up,"_ came the brittle hiss, the biting retort, and I flinch a little, shocked by the vicious pleasure that writhes through Gertie's blazing expression. "You know what I think? I think I've just looked after you _bitches_ for _two fucking weeks_ for nothing! Now _lean over those!"_ A brittle, speckled finger motions to two hard-backed wooden chairs, carved and tailored for someone much older than Jenny and I, and our hesitance only angers the woman further. She herds us to the supple, smooth furniture, and instructs us to bend over. From the corner of my eye I see Jenny, shaking and weeping uncontrollably, and, unable to find a comforting word, I clench my knuckles around the slender wood as if it could relieve my sister from this humiliation, this abuse.

" _You bitches!"_ Gertrude snarls, eyes blazing with a fierce hatred, and that's when the lashes begin.


	11. False Comforts

TEN: PAULA

My mother's voice floats throughout the thin, badly cracked walls of the house, harsh and streaked with a bloodied, feverish rage. " _And if that cheque isn't here next week, we do this all over again, you understand?!"_

Smirking, I push my knotty ebony hair back, away from my vision, just as the Likens girls are sneaking back up from the basement. Both girls are weeping, snivelling, the sweet sounds of pain and torment thick in their throats, eager for a release.

Glancing Sylvia's way, I get a glimpse of regret and anguish, and my features harden, my brown-almost-black eyes piercing through her as if this act could set fire to her from within. She tenses, lifting her chin a bit as if to say that she wouldn't be defeated so easily, that momma would have to do a whole lot worse if Sylvia was to be beaten down.

 _God, she should be praised for that,_ I thought. I could have admired her courage, or near stupidity at that – that the cold, vacant expression she wore now would be mercilessly ripped away, leaving a cold shell of obedience. My siblings and I had all been reared that way, were all wired that way, and if it were to happen with Baby Denny one day, so much the better for Sylvia.

"I _need_ that money," my momma advises the elder girl, and she nods, tucking her little sister under her arm to shelter her from momma's rage.

"C'mon, Jenny," she sighs once momma has her back turned. "It's not like we ain't gotten a spanking before.

When the sister doesn't answer, Sylvia tucks a piece of dark hair past her pixie-like ear and kisses her forehead softly. "That cheque's gonna come along, I swear."

Jenny's small, encouraging smile is a stamp upon her older sister's cheek, the tears mingling to create that salty stench, not enough to ebb the tide of punishment.


	12. A Painful Memory

ELEVEN: GERTRUDE

The sigh that volleys out of my cracked lips is vacant and emotionless, bred entirely from sickness and weariness. The basement stinks of exhaust, the ebbing heat from the murky walls, scorching every bit of me. I hang the belt back into its slot, my eyes dark with pleasure as I recall the incident again, allowing it to bubble in the darkest corners of my mind.

Paula, brewing water on the stove, looks up at me tentatively through her black flag of hair, eyes glittering in curiosity. Nodding at her is my only confirmation, and she gives a small smirk of her own before returning to the bubbling pot. I lower myself into the seat nearest me, lip pulled back in disgust as I reach for my lighter, the cigarette already poised delicately between my teeth.

I nod expectantly at the small pile of unopened mail, as though each were laced with poison, and spit out, "That'll be _more_ _bills_ , I presume."

Paula, tucking a lock of stringy hair behind her ear, ducks her head and abandons the stove to stand beside me. Her chubby figure leans over the teakwood as she clasps the pile, taking care not to crush any letters. "No, momma. It's their payment, see? Twenty, just like you agreed on." The bill is tight in her pale grip, and I sneer slightly, my lip curled as I light the cigarette, the lightweight cylinder like the fine bone of a bird.

I exhale, the smoke pouring out like a second soul, and study, not the letter, but my own daughter's calculating expression. I nod, flickering the ash down onto the ground, although Stephanie made sure there was an ashtray set next to me. "How was school, Paula?" I smirk, taking another heavy drag and flickering my eyes toward her gaze.

She shrugs, her gaze souring at the mention of Arsenal Tech. "It was fine, momma. Sylvia and Jenny seem to like it very much."

"That Sylvia," I growl, half to myself. "There's something about her … I can't quite place it, just something's up with that girl, I can tell it."

I don't hear Paula's reply, if there was one – instead I rise from my seat, dropping the cylinder into the ashtray with a flourish, resolve drawn around me like an icy grip. "Can you see to little Dennis, Paula?" I hiss, and at the mention of the baby she sighs, glaring through hooded eyes at her half-brother.

"Sure, momma," she says flippantly, shuffling over to swaddle the infant in her arms. He coos at his older sister, eyes wide and glittering with a childlike curiosity, and he catches Paula's pinky with his hammy fist, gurgling a language I have long since forgotten, broken by the cusp of poverty and parenthood.

I turn away, my mind churning with a flurry of possibilities. I remember when I was younger, shortly before my father passed, a game we would play called _What If._ The game was simple, really. Ask a _What If_ and the next person has to try and beat that one with an even bigger possibility. It was exciting to my five year old self, that blissfully unaware girl, to chase every rung on that ladder and not know you were getting absolutely nowhere.

"What if," he would say, poking my stomach with a bone-like digit, "we packed all our things and moved to someplace exotic?"

I had giggled, lost in the euphoria my father always could provide, and replied, "What if … you became the _very first_ person to cure cancer?"

He had paused, considering, and when he smiled it was like the first real summer, the kind of summer that takes your breath away, makes you realise you really were alive all this time. "What if the only antidote was on the top of a large mountain range?"

Wrinkling my nose, I'd pondered over what that scenario would be like in this lifetime, my father's expression curious and considering. "What if it was locked in a large vault and the only person who could get to it was a talking giraffe?"

I had laughed at my private joke, but my father's gaze had turned vacant, and in his lowly tone, he murmured, "Gertie, sweetie, giraffes don't talk."

And when I asked him why, in that trusting, sickening display, I felt his throat close up like the shutter of a camera, and his racketing sob he'd tried hard to conceal had escaped him, as if all emotion could escape from an exit as thin as a pin. "Because that's the way they are."

At the time, I hadn't understood why my father was so emotional over some silly, fictional giraffe. But five years later, when the paramedics came and took him away, when nobody thought to tell a snivelling ten year old _What If The Cancer Didn't Come Back,_ that's when I knew.

That knowledge, in my experience, is at least second nature.


	13. Sisterly Bond

TWELVE: SYLVIA

The halls of Arsenal Technical are crowded and bustling with the low hum of energy. Speeding down the steps with Jenny in tow, we barely make it past the swarming crowd before they all rush in, straining to get a look at what is happening in the courtyard – another, Paula tells me, fistfight. I had never been involved in one before, but I'd heard how brutal they could get. I had often wondered what sort of satisfaction boys got pummeling each other so, but violence was something I'd never want to be practiced in, and so I'd let my mind wander to a certain extent.

Perhaps it was how they got their kicks. The human mind was a fascinating thing, and I'd heard stories about the darkest corners of the mind, how disturbing some ideologies and actions people believed in or committed. Maybe a small fistfight was the way they kept that part of themselves in check, while also letting it loose, giving the demon a chance to play, before they finally crumbled and went mad.

Jenny's breath is wispy in the cold air, and she shudders violently as she adjusts her paisley coat. "Sure is cold here in Indy," she sighs, giving me a small smile.

I nod, although my mind is tracing back to the brawl inside the corridors. "Yeah," I respond dryly, pushing the shaggy curtain of hair out of my face. The wind tousles some caramel locks, so my hair sticks up on end. Jenny sees this and giggles to herself, and encouragingly, I grin back.

"You look like a chicken, Cookie," she laughs, attempting to smooth down the knotty kinks of brown. "Here, lemme help. You'll muss it up."

I let her, watching with fascination as her small pale fingers pull and graze, helping my hair somewhat, taking care to avoid the really knotty lumps.

"I could just brush it when we get back to Gertie's," Jenny giggles.

I shrug, cracking a small grin at her, my cheeks flushed and a magnificent blood blush. "Sure, Jen." I wrap my free arm around her, the other occupied with my schoolbooks, and pull her to my side as we walk down the bustling neighborhood. My stomach rumbles like a lion within, and I peek at my belly in irritation before glancing back toward my sister. Her muffled giggles are hysterical, her eyes glittering in amusement. She pokes at my stomach, causing me to parry her assault in mild annoyance, before giggling at her and continuing on our walk. Feeling the insides of my pocket, my lip curls upward, trembling slightly from the heat of both me and my sister, as we huddled from the ominous chill. Trading in the bottles to the store had been simple, and I'd received a decent pay for it, I'd thought. There was some enough for a long distance call to our parents, but I'd figured the amount in my coat was enough to spend on something that Jenny and I wanted.

Glancing back my way, Jenny whistles in approval at the coins clenched in my fist. "We should get some candy," she pouts, puffing out her cheeks in a defiant way. Nodding, I pull her in step with me, her grin a stamp against my cheek.


	14. The First Offence

THIRTEEN: GERTRUDE

The dizziness of emotion I relive has crumbled away, leaving a white-lipped ocean of turmoil. It begins the minute the Likens' girls plough into my house after their second day, giggling amongst themselves, poisonous words upon the older sister's despicable, lying lips. Wide-eyed and with bated breath, she peers at me over thin, impossibly dark eyelashes before mutely ducking her brunette head. "Hello, ma'am," she whispers, scuffling the toe of her shoe against the ashen carpet. "Sorry we came home so late, we just –"

Dark, anticipating eyes meet burning onyx ones – she meets my furious gaze, inclining her chin a bit so she looks me dead in the eye, and I rise from my seat, my chest stirring slightly as she cowers, anticipation rife in her expression.

"Just?" I pry, and the two sisters exchange a glance, each as unsure as the other. Around them, my oldest boy Johnny, as well as his sisters Shirley and Marie, lounge, their curiosity dark and hungry. Stephanie busies herself, lunging for the kettle to prepare a hot drink for herself, her blush evidence of her unwillingness to get involved. Paula, with Denny swaddled in her thick arms, smirks slightly, peering at her baby brother under a guise of polite concern.

I nod toward the bag clenched in Sylvia's trembling hand. "What's that?"

"W-we just bought some candy from down the road, Gertie," Jenny answers lowly, her face drained of blood. She too ducks her head, a mirror image of her sister, tears pooling in her eyes, on the brink of overflow.

"Candy?" I sneer, snatching the takeaway bag from her sister's limp grip. "You two probably stole it, didn't you? Where would two fucking _brats_ like you earn money?"

"We didn't steal it," Sylvia answers lowly, her tone polite but laced with incredible fury. "I'd traded in some bottles down the road, you know, the corner store."

"Honest, it's all she did, Gertie." Jenny's voice falters when she meets my burning gaze, and she ducks her head again, shame evident on her features.

I shake my head, lip pulled back in unfathomable rage. "I don't allow _theft_ in my house, Sylvia," I snap, causing the young girl to step back in alarm, wide-eyed and terrified. "Didn't your parents teach you nothing?"

Infuriated at the lack of response from the pair, I throw the sweet bag at their feet, watching in vicious pleasure when the protective plastic bursts at their feet.

"How dare you come into my house and steal shit," I hiss, almost nose to nose with the girls burning a deep scarlet. "Now _clean that shit up."_

It is Sylvia who obliges, gathering her composure and strength, to place the scattered lollies and place them back in the burst plastic. The material is clutched in her venomous grip, her knuckles whitened with the very effort. Deliberately, as if to spite me further, she picks her way to the bin and dumps the confectionery inside, closing the lid with a resounding _thump._

I wrestle the urges, deep and writhing within me, instead choosing to glare potently at the helpless girl. I sigh through my nostrils, calling peace to mind, and order her and her brat sister into their makeshift room. At their absence, a vicious relief floods over me, a lit cigarette poised between my lips. Calm washes over my possessed body like a white-lipped froth, and I turn to keep my composure, smoke pluming out of my mouth, fresh and feverish.


	15. Rumours

FOURTEEN: PAULA

"So do you actually think they're prostitutes?"

"Probably, I mean, have you heard some of the shit that comes out of Coy's mouth? They're pretty easy."

Giggles and snide whispers surround the school halls, and the stirring, deep and dark in my chest, ripples into a crescendo as I speed past them.

"Paula!" At the mention of my name I grind to a halt, blood roaring in my ears, and to my left I see Sylvia, this time unaided by her little sister, strolling up to me, her expression flavourless and gaunt-like. "I haven't seen you around school in a while. You're not avoiding me, are you?"

The implication that she actually gives a shit about this, that she knows what it's like to be mocked and humiliated, is enough to make my blood boil. I take a step back, away from her, away from the perfect girl with the perfect life, my lip curled in unspeakable rage. "What do you care?"

Blinded with confusion, fear is adamant in her gaze, sparkling inside her chocolate orbs, and I smirk to myself. _Pussy._

"Paula, it wasn't me. Why would I say that?"

"Ghee, I'm not sure," I hiss, stepping up to her and roughly shoving her back. She stumbles to the ground, scrambling to her feet to steady herself, the heat from her red eyes almost trying to burn me for my actions. What did she care, this uptight bitch? She didn't know what it was like, to have everything turned against you. I snarl in her face, and she tries bringing up a palm to shield herself, the mask that maybe this really isn't happening, maybe she's away someplace nice, not here, not ever.

"I'm not, Sylvia," I growl, savagely throwing her weakening body onto the floor. The sickly smell of floor cleaner attacks my nasal passages and I grimace, pushing my thin hair out of my vision and stepping back as I observe her. "That's one thing you have to learn here. You can't fucking lie."

The sob that growls from her chest is heavy, and she finally turns to me, refusing my offer for a hand up. "Okay." Her voice is strained, not like the strong, confident girl I'd met weeks prior.

Still, I smirk at her helplessness.


	16. The Liar

FIFTEEN: RICKY

Gertrude sits at the dinner table, cigarette poised in hand, when I arrive to the house after school. She says nothing, instead taking a heavy drag, but looks up at me at the sound of the door slamming shut. Her brooding eyes regard me, as if sizing me up, and she finally smiles, half to herself.

"Hey, Ricky."

I nod, pressing my lips into a thin line, and smirk softly back. "Gertie. You got any cigarettes?"

She nods at the small container beside her, and smiling, I go and take one, my lighter poised to burn. "How've you been, Ricky?"

"Alright, I guess," I mumble, "but momma's back in hospital. Cancer's back, they reckon."

She nods slowly, ash flickering subtly onto the stained carpet beneath her, and her gaze is sparkling up at me, a plethora of questions bubbling under a dark surface. "Well, that's no good, Ricky. How've you spent your days?"

"Hanging around, usually," I admit, my voice strained. I gingerly reach for another cigarette, taking time to light and inhale, anything to avoid elaborating my answer. "Johnny says you've got boarders now?"

"Yeah, two new girls," Gertie spits out. "Sylvia and Jenny."

Something is off about her tone, the way she says the first girl's name, Sylvia, as though the very name were laced with poison. She reaches for a hasty drag and inhales as though this would bring her deserved salvation. She scoffs at me, a dark twinkle coming to her eyes as she focuses her thoughts on the two new girls. I study her, my mouth turned down slightly, my hand cupping the filter. Gertie notices this, the vacant, distilled woman piercing through me like another part of me. She gives me a crooked grin. "Ricky, there's nothing to worry about. Sylvia's just a hard person to manage, she's been nothing but a burden so far."

"Damn," I mutter. "What'd she do?"

"She's been real bad," Gertie purrs, her voice smooth and dangerously low. "That little bitch has been stealing from me, I caught her. She's been lyin', too, no wonder her good for nothin' parents just left her with me."

I scoff, disgusted with the idea that someone could just be that awful in another person's home. My respect for Gertie was insurmountable, and whatever she said must be true. Pity for her flickered in my chest, stirring deep and true, and I glanced at her, taking in her dark and dangerous expression. "What'd she take?"

Gertie smirks slightly at me, quirking her head at me with a distilled expression. "Money. About a ten, I think, I can't be sure." Her tone is rife with satisfaction, though I can't place why, although the nicotine piercing my tongue isn't as sweet as I remember. Her smile is Cheshire like, her yellow fangs pulled back into an electric grin. I brush off the ash that powders my jeans, the momentary distraction comforting yet brief.

"How about you, Gertie? How have you been?" I remember I hadn't asked when I first entered the house, and shame befalls me as I come to the realisation. Gertie's eyes are hooded, as if she is suspicious of the sudden change of topic, but fatigue and childcare is taking a drastic toll on the woman. Guilt envelopes me into an embrace as I take in her sickliness, wishing there was some way I could help her. The blush on my cheeks is heating every bit of me as I glance her way, and I have to duck my head so she avoids notice.

Smirking a little, she answers, "Alright, but like I said, Sylvia's a problem. I just can't discipline her the way I should, Ricky. She's … incorruptible, like."

"Where is she now?"

Her pause, solicitous but brooding all the same, is the first thing I notice as I rear my head up to peek at her again. "School," Gertie snarls. "But God knows she's probably causing trouble there, too. Honestly, I don't know why she's even here. I'd send her away if anyone wanted her, believe me, I would. I don't need some _little cunt_ running around ruinin' my reputation."

I smirk at her vile choice of words, smoothing my hair away from my face, but before I get a chance to reply, Gertie opens the front door to greet her oldest girl. Paula's face is sticky and hot, sweat and tears streaming down her cheeks at a fast rate. Gertie embraces her briefly before pushing her away and demanding what the matter is. Paula's blubbering is unintelligible, at least to my ears, yet Gertie manages to manoeuvre her to the couch opposite me, and that is when the answers come pouring out like the vile worms they are.

"Momma …. it's Sylvia. She's been telling everyone at school me and Stephanie are sluts."


End file.
